MLB 2013 Season
- Thread starter Ramy
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Ratings are not as relevant in this case.
Just out of curiosity I did come across some of these stories
http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/kcal-draws-best-local-rating-for-the-dodgers-in-15-years-1200570416/
http://sportsjournalism.org/sports-media-news/tv-ratings-for-dodgers-best-in-four-years/
And don't forget a big chunk of viewers currently cannot see the games on KCAL because of the Time Warner dispute!
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I think ratings have to be relevant in ESPN's process of picking Sunday night games. I am as sick as anyone of the Sunday night game always including the Red Sox or Yankees. They have to have better ratings when they include those teams or they wouldn't keep choosing them though.
The Tigers currently have the best record in the AL. They also have the best RSN in market ratings if i can remember correctly. There have been lots of MLB Network and Fox Saturday games but the ESPN Sunday games seem pretty rare. This tells me that they must not draw as well nationally.
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ESPN Sunday Night Baseball: Yankees-Red Sox Delivers Highest-Rated Telecast of 2013
After tonight, here are the next three weeks:
Sept. 1
New York Mets at Washington Nationals
Sept. 8
Los Angeles Dodgers at Cincinnati Reds
Sept. 15
New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox
Wow! With the exception of the last one it blows the previous theory.
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EXACTLY!!! I've been saying this for a while now. I'm a Red Sox fan and I HATE when they're on Sunday Night Baseball. But guess what, they're a ratings draw. I'm no fan of ESPN, but it would be poor business to put on games that won't draw as many eyes.
The cable ratings are relevant to the advertisers, who are paying for eyeballs watching their advertisements.
I remember reading a few years ago that Boston was the third largest baseball television market because it included the DMAs of Providence, RI, Springfield, MA, Portland Maine, and I think Plattsburgh New York and Hartford Connecticut. I was more recently surprised to learn that Philadelphia was the second largest market. I had figured that second was either LA or Chicago. I was also surprised to see that Detroit was much higher on the list of cable homes where available than its DMA would suggest, and that it was at or near the top in ratings as well. I didn't bookmark that list, but it showed total average viewers, which is the rating times the subscribing homes, and as I recall, the Dodgers and Angels were down alongside the Kansas City Royals, because even though more cable homes had access to the cable networks with the LA baseball contracts, they had far and away the lowest viewership percentage. I remember when I poked around last year, I saw that the Rex Sox viewership on NESN had dropped from the highest in baseball to maybe the third or fourth, and two of the other top teams for percentage viewership were St. Louis and Detroit. Detroit surprised me because I don't think of the Tigers as the kind of franchise that has the loyal lifetime following that Boston, New York, St. Louis and Cincinnati have.
In Boston, the television demand for the Celtics is highly elastic, whereas the demand for the Bruins is inelastic. Bruins fans have historically been fewer in number but follow the team through think and thin. Attendance: 13,909 for years, no matter whether they were in first place or last, whereas during the Sidney Wicks/Curtis Rowe years, the Celtics' paid attendance was often around 7,000 but probably fewer than half that number showed up. I sat in the press row for one Celtics game because only three or four beat reporters had bothered to attend.
Times Warner or whomever gave the Dodgers that humongous contract has to have a ratings clause in it whether they have announced that term to the public or not.
I remember reading a few years ago that Boston was the third largest baseball television market because it included the DMAs of Providence, RI, Springfield, MA, Portland Maine, and I think Plattsburgh New York and Hartford Connecticut. I was more recently surprised to learn that Philadelphia was the second largest market. I had figured that second was either LA or Chicago. I was also surprised to see that Detroit was much higher on the list of cable homes where available than its DMA would suggest, and that it was at or near the top in ratings as well. I didn't bookmark that list, but it showed total average viewers, which is the rating times the subscribing homes, and as I recall, the Dodgers and Angels were down alongside the Kansas City Royals, because even though more cable homes had access to the cable networks with the LA baseball contracts, they had far and away the lowest viewership percentage. I remember when I poked around last year, I saw that the Rex Sox viewership on NESN had dropped from the highest in baseball to maybe the third or fourth, and two of the other top teams for percentage viewership were St. Louis and Detroit. Detroit surprised me because I don't think of the Tigers as the kind of franchise that has the loyal lifetime following that Boston, New York, St. Louis and Cincinnati have.
In Boston, the television demand for the Celtics is highly elastic, whereas the demand for the Bruins is inelastic. Bruins fans have historically been fewer in number but follow the team through think and thin. Attendance: 13,909 for years, no matter whether they were in first place or last, whereas during the Sidney Wicks/Curtis Rowe years, the Celtics' paid attendance was often around 7,000 but probably fewer than half that number showed up. I sat in the press row for one Celtics game because only three or four beat reporters had bothered to attend.
Times Warner or whomever gave the Dodgers that humongous contract has to have a ratings clause in it whether they have announced that term to the public or not.
The reasons ratings aren't as relevant is because total viewership is different than rating percentage. The RSN cares how many watch, not the ratings.
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Not really, If you look at the city instead of the Team aspect.
Each week is either NY or LA, the 2 largest market in the US.
On September 1, the Yankees are carried nationally on TBS so they are not available, and the Red Sox play a terrible, inconsequential Chicago White Sox team and the Dodgers are playing last place San Diego, with the added undesirable aspect of that matchup being that neither is an eastern market team. On the other hand, I suspect that the Mets nearly always draw respectably, and while I don't know how far in advance these games are selected, Washington was supposed to contend this year and was becoming a glamor team what with Strasburg and Harper, so the league was trying to throw ESPN a ratings winner that night, but Niece versus Ohlendorf ain't exactly Koufax versus Marichal.
Then, on September 8th Boston plays the Yankees on TBS, and since those same two teams will be televised the next week on ESPN, they aren't going to get booked two weeks in a row. For now the Dodgers are a presumptive draw as a historically hot team. My concern, and the concern of the cable companies is, how much better than average do the Dodgers have to be in subsequent years to garner how much of an increase in game-to-game ratings? Will spending $200 million a year be enough to make that team interesting enough to historically indifferent local fans to justify the cable rights fee? I'm not sold on the notion that it will work out in the long run. NESN has millions of viewers who listened to Ken Coleman and Ned Martin - and even Curt Gowdy - before there was a NESN. I don't think you can transform contemporary LA natives into 162 game-a-year baseball watchers.
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I was looking at where those teams are in the ranks and not the cities.
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I also think tonight will draw the last respectable number this season for Sunday Night Baseball. Next Sunday we'll be in the middle of Labor Day Weekend, and starting Sept. 8th, Sunday Night Football will be back.
Even tonight is preseason football which may drawl more viewers than tonight's baseball game.
Don't ask me why so many are interested in watching games that mean absolutely nothing.
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Don't ask me why so many are interested in watching games that mean absolutely nothing.
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A broadcaster was taken by stretcher out of the Vin Scully broadcast booth at Dodger Stadium moments ago
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I'll be watching the Sox game tonight, with a 45 minute break for Breaking Bad, but the 49ers/Vikings game is on national NBC and will probably double the baseball rating.
It will get more viewers. Football fans are fanatics. They'll watch games that mean nothing and even get upset if they lose practice games.
ETA. Plus baseball is local. Most of the viewers will be in the LA and Boston markets. Whereas football will be watched more nationally.
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